Electrorheological fluids are a class of smart materials having property that their rheological properties can be changed reversibly under the influence of an applied electric field. In recent years, many industrial applications of these smart fluids have been introduced by researchers, especially in damping control of systems. In the present work, the applicability of squeeze-mode ER dampers in suppressing the vibration of a cantilever beam is investigated. Dynamic response of the beam for an impulse exciting force is obtained using a direct integration method based on a finite element model for the structure. The nonlinear displacement and velocity dependent characteristics of the squeeze-mode ER damper are considered in each of iterations. Although the proposed ER damper have found to have a significant influence on the dynamic response of the structure, adding a closed-loop control system could improve the damping behavior of the structure considerably. While the strength of electric field depends on the gap between the electrodes, the control system uses displacement feedback for producing a controlling voltage to prevent the electric field exceeding its allowable bounds.

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